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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29618913">A Question</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/misreall/pseuds/misreall'>misreall</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Stories From the Bookstore Basement, Or : Flitcraft's [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood Drinking, F/M, Kissing, Oral Sex, Romance, Vaginal Sex, Vampires</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:42:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,642</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29618913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/misreall/pseuds/misreall</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam has a question for Kay.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adam (Only Lovers Left Alive)/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Stories From the Bookstore Basement, Or : Flitcraft's [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>70</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Dodge and a Parry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Kay?  Kay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kay heard Earl’s voice, but she was lost enough in thought, staring out of the window at the latest in the endless falls of snow that had covered the town in the last three weeks that it didn’t register he was calling her name.  With this current storm, they would be at over four feet, easily.  The snow was the beautiful, holiday movie kind though they were past Valentine’s Day.  Due to the extreme cold, the layers and layers of it stayed crisp and almost dry.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was sunny, as well.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So unnatural.  Adam had been on a month-long tear about global warming and she had no doubt he would have fresh rage to share with her after work.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Earth to fucking Kay!”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jumping, she turned and saw Earl, a file folder twisted into a cone that he was holding to his mask-covered mouth like a megaphone and leaning halfway over the front counter.  A startled-looking customer had taken a step back, her eyes wide over her own mask.  “Sorry,” Kay said, bustling over to them fast enough that her pink wool tights threatened to set off static sparks in a private area.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That had happened before and it was not pleasant.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now that I have your attention,” Earl said, sitting back down and gesturing broadly to the customer, “this nice lady has a question about the order of those romance novels, the one on Netflix with the handsome brother my wife can’t stop talking about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bianca, who was refilling their stock of bags, muttered, “I offered to Google it, but Uncle Earl said that’s what we have you for.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kay raised a brow at Earl, then shrugged a little.  She did know the order of the series, she knew the order of pretty much every series, even if she didn’t read them, be they romance, science fiction, mystery, horror, teen, or middle reader.  Though she was weak on chapter books.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After taking the customer to the display - the very first display of only romance novels in the store’s history, because the demand for the books was such that Earl genuinely rubbed his hands together with greed and then ordered Kay to bring in the books - and pointed out that she had shelved the books in order.  Which both Earl and Bianca would have known if they had listened to her.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then Kay realized they hadn’t ignored her, she hadn’t told them.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She always told the staff the thoughts and dynamics behind her displays.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes with notes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dazed at her own lack of pedantry, Kay wandered behind the counter, sitting down hard on the tall chair behind the second register.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong with you?” Earl asked, sliding the straw of his milkshake under his mask.  Solange was on a health kick lately and to make up for the nutritious meals he was getting at him, he had started eating nothing but carbs, salt, and sugar at work.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Today?  I don’t know.  I might be tired.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, not today.  All week.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The weather, I guess,” she said, turning to the POS to look at the online orders, hooking the heels of her boots in the footrest.  Those sales were back up, since no one wanted to come out in the snow if they didn’t have to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t the weather, she knew.  It was Valentine’s Day.  Adam was - to no one’s surprise - horrified by the idea of Valentine’s Day.  After he had made such an effort for her at Christmas, Kay had decided to pretend her second favorite holiday wasn’t even happening that year.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Other than wearing her special Valentine’s Day outfit that she wore every year.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And buying herself a box of chocolates like she did every year, but she kept those in the store to share with everyone so he wouldn’t have even known about those.  Though she had taken the roses she had bought </span>
  <em>
    <span>only</span>
  </em>
  <span> because they were on sale downstairs with her, but she knew he liked flowers so that was ok.  Certainly, it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And sending out Valentine’s Day cards as usual.  She had found reproductions of original Victorian cards online so she couldn’t skip them </span>
  <em>
    <span>this </span>
  </em>
  <span>year.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>With the snobbery he liked to pretend he didn’t have - “having some fucking discernment doesn’t make me a goddamned snob,” - Adam rolled his eyes to the soundproofed ceiling of his lair as she addressed her envelopes.  It had taken her twenty minutes to clear off his kitchen table and wipe up the grease from the piece of his car that he was working on upgrading, having forgotten again that there was now actual food in that kitchen and that he could poison her if he wasn’t careful with his bits of stuff.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span> “The fucking Victorians really needed to put lace on everything, didn’t they?”  He picked up one of the cards between two of his nails, holding it before his eyes with distaste.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Says the man from the 17th century.  I am sure you had a French lace jabot under your breastplate when you rode off with the rest of the Cavaliers.”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mumbling something about the Roundheads, he had retreated to noodle on one of his guitars.  One of the rarest ones that he didn’t let her practice on.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Valentine’s Day came and went, with a few extra sales of poetry and collections of erotica but not many, since the state of the world had knocked most of the romance out of everyone, not just people with vampire boyfriends who didn’t like the terms ‘boyfriend’, ‘vampire’, or ‘romance’.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kay tried to convince herself she wasn’t at all bitter about Adam being Adam.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next morning, slightly before dawn, she had woken to Adam curling up around her, sleepily whispering into her hair, “Was yesterday Valentine’s Day?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that a joke?” she asked, entirely not sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.  I knew it was soon, everything was pink and red, and you wore that dress with the Cupids but it’s you.  With you, it could be you wearing a dress with Cupids because you were rereading Marlowe’s Ovid to give him shit about it and that was your reading Ovid dress.”  Flexing his arms to pull her closer to him, putting a leg over both of her’s in a move that was both cuddly and possessive, she could hear him fading out as the sun rose.  “I had something I wanted to do for Valentine’s Day.  Something to ask you… something important…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he was asleep and Kay was wide awake, staring into the darkness.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she eventually gave up and got out of bed, she found a note waiting for her on the little side-table by the couch that she had declared to be hers and off-limits for the wafts of clutter that seemed to produce spontaneously by merely walking through a room.  Written in his impossible hand - half copperplate, half doctor’s prescription pad scribble - it said, she thought, that he needed to talk to her after work.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That it was important.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now Kay went from nervous to terrified.  For Adam to make an appointment to talk with her when she was already living with him, that he used the word important twice, and that he had bothered to write a note to ensure it would happen was not good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not good at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Feeling like a true asshole, and going against every instinct she had to the contrary, Kay gently let the note waft to the ground, giving it a bit of a nudge so it ended up in the pile of German crime novels under the sofa, and then pulled out her phone to text her mother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her father had been wanting her to come over for two weeks to organize his notes for his new book on the poetry of the Tudor and Elizabethan aristocracy.  By organise he meant enter them into the computer so he could send them to his publisher, since he found the light from the computer even dimmed to be unbearable, and her mother was too busy on her own project to do it for him.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rather than send a message that her brother Malcolm could do it since he was sheltering with them and probably doing nothing but playing games anyway, it suddenly seemed like the best idea ever to do it herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later in the day she texted Adam that she just had to go to her parent’s, and why.  When he mentioned his note, it made her fingers ache with tension to type back, “What note?”  Even an electronic lie was painful to her.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It should not have been possible for him to grumble in a text, but someone Adam managed it, asking how long she would be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brightly, she was able to text back the complete truth that it would probably take her a few late nights.   </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not respond.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every night for the rest of the week Kay had gone to her parent’s, letting herself in while everyone in the house stayed on the second floor, let herself into her dad’s office, and gave herself a headache translating </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> hieroglyphic handwriting into a reasonable document.  By the time she made it back to the store and let herself into Adam's lair, her eyes would be sore, her skull throbbing, and her whole demeanor so exhausted that he would frown and shoo her straight to bed.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Always asking, gruffly, if she was going to be fucking done any time in the next decade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Muttering a response, Kay would not have to fake falling asleep.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now she had no excuses.  Her dad’s work was on its way to his editor, which Adam knew since her father had called to tell him!  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kay had been happy that the two most important people in her life, one of whom had trouble making friends outside of academia, and the other of whom actively avoided the whole concept of other people, got along.  When Adam had not only shown active interest and knowledge of her father’s field, and a willingness to listen to him go on at length in his enthusiasm and not only to be nice to his girlfriend’s dad, it had been a very big deal for both of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, as it grew darker outside, she found herself fretting about no longer being able to put off talking with Adam.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had an idea of what he wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hoped very, very hard that she was wrong.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Adam knew Kay had been dodging him.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if she was working on her father’s manuscript for him, it would have been easy enough for her to come downstairs at the store before going each night.  And even if she was tired getting home, she wasn’t as tired as she pretended to be.  He had seen some of the worst actors in history in his long life and Kay was terrible by comparison.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thought he knew why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Valentine’s Day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had really fucked up about Valentine’s Day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Granted, it was in his mind the second stupidest holiday, right after Loyalty Day.  Which, when he thought about it, probably hadn’t been celebrated in decades so it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>the</span>
  </em>
  <span> stupidest holiday.  It was a holy day, honoring two martyrs for fuckssake.  One of them had been burned to death, so why weren’t people exchanging cute, festive little boxes of matches rather than ones filled with chocolates?  Why?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sitting down, pushing his hands through his hair, he could hear the sound of Kay’s boots tapping on the floor, feeling guilty.  He knew it mattered to Kay, which meant it should have mattered to him to make an effort.  Gotten her some flowers, rather than her buying them for herself.  One of those boxes of candy.  A card. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Played a romantic song for her at least.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”  That one wasn’t too terrible.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he should get his shit together and take her to Berkeley Square when it was safe.  She had never been, after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The idea of going back to London after all of that time, let alone what the flight would be like, made him pitch over onto his side, hiding his face in a pillow with a groan.  He was a selfish bastard, he knew that, set in his ways, difficult to accommodate and harder to live with.  Even Eve had needed her own place much of the time, though he had never doubted her love for an instant.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck!  He should have done all those things for tonight!  Looking around at the comfortable shambles of his home, he groaned again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How he expected Kay to put up with him in the long term - the lightest, most thoughtful, most </span>
  <em>
    <span>organised</span>
  </em>
  <span> person he had ever known - if he couldn’t even manage to put aside his distaste for greeting cards to make her smile?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Upstairs, the bookcase door opened as Kay slipped downstairs.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She seemed to be stopping on each step.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam stood up and crossed the room in a few long strides.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned the little corner and almost bumped into him.  “Um, hi!” she said with a little wave, as if she hadn’t been expecting him.  Then she proceed to babble at some length about work, putting down her bag and sliding around him, heading to the kitchen, babbling more about wanting a cup of tea, talking over him every time he started to talk in a kind of rudeness that was wildly out of character.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was really angry with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kay!” Adam hadn’t meant to shout, but his own goddamned nerves were getting the better of him.  “I wanted to ask-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Freezing, like a startled doe, the kettle she was filling from the tap overflowed.  “Yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you eaten?”  That was not what he planned on saying.  He was so nervous he didn’t know what he was doing.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh?  No, I’m not hungry yet.  I have stuff in the freezer, I just want to take these boots off, my feet are killing me.  The tea can wait!”  Everything in her was overly cheery, though her eyes were brooding and unhappy.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now he had to chase as she bustled out of the kitchen, her little pleated skirt billowing and, though he knew it probably was impossible, he could swear there were a few sparks coming out from under it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Feeling his forehead, Adam wondered if it was possible for one of his kind to have a brain tumor, because his head was splitting and he may have been hallucinating.  It was so bad he barely noticed how sexy it was to watch her unzip the first of her knee high boots, sliding it off with a small moan of pleasure, her long hair having fallen forward to hide her expression.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Barely noticed, but noticed enough to still get half a hard-on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam knew that if his cock got itself too involved he would never get his question out, so despite the lack of romance or anything like preparation, he blurted out, “Kay, would you be willing to let me turn you into a vampire?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Despite the use of the dreaded v-word, he had done it, he had gotten it out.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a shocked noise, Kay sat up, one boot off, the other half off, her hair flying everywhere and her eye meeting his, enormous with shock.  Then she smiled, the loveliest, happiest, most relieved smile Adam could imagine.  “Oh, that’s what you wanted to ask!”  Sliding her remaining boot the rest of the way off, she stood and then went up on her toes to kiss his cheek, “No, thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she left standing there, stunned, to make that cup of tea.  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. An Answer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Adam and Kay talk.  Badly.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>Adam was upset, Kay could tell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, she thought to herself, watching as he crossed the room to pick up a guitar - that to her ignorant eyes was identical to the one he had just broken three strings on - while kicking his own belongings out of the way, anyone could tell when Adam was upset.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t subtle when he was out of sorts, and had no problem showing negative emotions freely.  Which was good, she told herself.  When something was bothering a person it was healthy to allow others to know, so they could respond appropriately, offering but not insisting on being an ear to vent to, to sit in silence with you, or if asked, to offer constructive advice on how to deal with either the emotions or the situation that led to them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kay thought all of that, as she sat drinking her third cup of tea, pretending to read </span>
  <em>
    <span>Melmoth</span>
  </em>
  <span> by Sarah Parry, her feet on the ground, knees together, taking up exactly as much room as she needed and no more.  Not because she was afraid, knowing that Adam would happily go to a tanning salon before harming her in any way that didn’t involve informed consent and some giggling, but to allow him to freely express his emotions without concern over her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All of which sounded very rational and supportive and correct in her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unfortunately, her stomach, heart, and lungs all had differing opinions.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being rather upset herself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stupidly upset over nothing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her lungs were trying very hard to heave, as if somehow taking in more air - which Adam didn’t need anyway - would ease her heart, which felt as if it had gone very still and fallen between her other organs to hide in her small intestine, while her stomach, and actually her bladder, were very much wishing she would stop drinking so much tea, since neither of them was at their best.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She very much needed to go to the bathroom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Standing, she told him as much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not looking up, rather he grasped a stack of loose sheet music from the floor, riffling through it quickly, “And?” he growled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t want you to think I was approaching you,” she said, carefully edging between the sofa and the coffee table.  Somehow in the last hour or so since his offer to turn her into a vampire had been rejected the basement had devolved from the state of detente between her desire for order and his desire for the comfort of clutter that had been their compromise into pure madness.  As if his irritation had turned into a chaos-generating field.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Piles of discarded clothing that Kay was certain had been put in the laundry hamper were everywhere, waiting to trip the unwary.  Stacks of books that she had at least been permitted to move back onto shelves, if not to a</span>
  <em>
    <span>ctually </span>
  </em>
  <span>shelve, had somehow migrated back to chairs and tables and the stove and probably the bed.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though it didn’t seem possible, she was fairly certain new additions had been made to the drumkit, a lute that she had never seen before was on the stairs, the rack of violins was fuller-looking, and even wooden shelves of records that Adam had allowed her to organize seemed to have fallen back into the state of disorganisation that made Kay’s brain itch and fingers ache to deal with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With an effort, Kay pretended not to see any of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam was seated on an old kitchen chair where bits of fluff were escaping from its cracked vinyl, his head down so his mass of hair had fallen forward, hiding his face as effectively a blackout curtain hid the sun.  When she passed in front of him, he cocked his head to the side so some of the thick moss of his hair slid away and she found one of his predator bird eyes staring blankly at her.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he looked down and started to play.  Asturias.  Very beautiful.  Very hypnotic.  Kay didn’t like it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made her cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She ignored the choice, smiling at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ignoring the mess of the records was almost as hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In what possible world would Modern Jazz Quartet’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fontessa</span>
  </em>
  <span> be sandwiched between a group called Discharge and something called The Billy Nayer Show?  “A world that should only exist in Adam’s head,” she thought grumpily, standing in the bathroom, looking at the sink which looked like an entire toolbox had been upended into it.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She washed her hands in the bathtub, from which she only had to remove an upright bass.  Thank goodness the bathroom was as large as it was.  Carefully placing it on the Wedgewood patterned bathmat that she had brought to try and make the institutional green walls a little warmer, its wooden belly gave a soft, reverberating bong that she knew Adam could hear.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Combing her hair, Kay wondered if vampires had a subconscious gift of telekinesis along with the psychometry even Adam couldn’t deny.  Though he preferred to characterize it as a sensitivity to the recordings elements he believed had to exist in all things on a molecular level.   Archaeoacoustics writ large.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also, she wondered if she should go home for the night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door to the bathroom flew open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jumping, startled, Kay’s fists shot up so they were parallel with her shoulders, her fist squeezing the comb, “I was careful with the bass!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam looked wild, his face emotional in a way it rarely was, “Fuck the bass,” he growled, “Why don’t you want to be with me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I all but live with you,” Kay took a step back, and ended up seated on the toilet, which she had put the seat down on like she always did, though she was now trying to remember the last time she had cleaned it as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaw jutting a bit, Adam pointed a finger at her, “Don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kay</span>
  </em>
  <span> me right now.  You bloody well know what I mean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Standing up, they were very close together, close enough that Adam had to tip his head back to peer down at her over his cheekbones.  “Ignoring you turning my name into a verb, and apparently a not very polite one, I do ‘bloody well know what you mean’,” Kay dropped her voice to a husky, yet somehow snippy, version of his voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a painfully snobby-sounding version of his accent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t even think about it!” he raged, throwing his hands in the air, “Just, ‘No thank you,’ and off to make a cup of fucking tea!  I would have expected a little more from you,” the last he said with a tone of near disdain.  “You cannot know what I went through all week to get up the nerve to ask you and you dismiss me like it was nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to be with you, but I can’t be a vampire.  I don’t want to be a vampire.  I have family and do you think for a second my mother wouldn’t notice I was really pale and my eyes were different, my dad maybe, but mom would be on it.  And I have responsibilities, and I like the sun, and I have to be able to work the day shift, and I am scared of it, and I love food, and beer, and tea, and think I would look weird with my hair like that, and what if you change your mind and I’m stuck drinking blood alone for the next few hundred years while the water wars or whatever that you ‘non-psychically’ sense is going to happen happens around me, and I am all alone, or I go crazy like most of your kind seem to.  Because even Kit is really not stable.  At </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span>.  And you are the one yelling at me in the bathroom about not understanding why I don’t want to change species for you!  Especially after I spent the whole week thinking you were going to-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would never leave you.  You fucking know I would never leave you,” he said with easy, angry dismissal.  Then he frowned, his nose scrunching in a way that she found adorable almost every other time he did it.  “I was going to </span>
  <em>
    <span>what?</span>
  </em>
  <span> What was I going to-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Storming past him, Kay sat down on the sofa hard enough to send up a puff of dust and started to pull her boots back on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She ignored him.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For some reason, the laces on her boots were very hard to see.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wiping her eyes under her glasses, she knocked them askew.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kay…” Adam’s voice was softer.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crouching in front of her, he gently took her glasses with the tips of his fingers, carefully wiping them dry on the hem of his old, silk shirt, as he softly asked, “What did you think I was going …?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her head hurt, and she was sniffling like a child, and she felt like an idiot.  Kay had spent most of her life learning how to not feel like an idiot when she was too direct, or literal, or engaged in any of the other what were for her, learned behaviors that were normal in her family and not so much anywhere else.  Now she knew that she was being strange rather than Adam being obtuse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rather than answer, she covered her face with her hands, embarrassed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you were going to ask me to marry you.  But I should have known you wouldn’t.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Adam rocked back on his heels, feeling mildly panicky and sick.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had never even occurred to him to ask Kay to marry him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swallowing to keep the anxiety down, he concentrated on her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was a mess.  Her face, before she hid it, was brilliantly red and swollen, her eyes most of all, her normally neat hair was everywhere, and she had somehow managed to create Gordian quality knots in her bootlace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At that moment he felt like the worst bully in the world.  The most confused worst bully, but still the worst.  “Did you say no because I didn’t ask you to marry me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not moving her hands, Kay separated two of her fingers, so one big, sad eye looked at him, “Maybe?”  Then she slowly lowered both of her hands to her lap.  “I would have said no anyway, for the before-stated reasons, but I would have been nicer.  And asked questions.  I would have lots of questions.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You always have lots of questions,” he spoke ruefully, fondly.  “Why did you say you should have known I wouldn’t ask you to marry me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because you are still married to Eve.  You always will be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam couldn’t, wouldn’t deny it.  Even now there were nights he awoke and for a moment he forgot that Eve was gone.  For those few seconds, he would think of her out there somewhere - Tangiers, Saigon, Montreal, whatever direction her shoes might take her - dancing slowly around a room of books, gossiping with whatever new friend she had made, or simply watching the world go by.  Collecting memories that she would whisper in his ear as they lay entwined when they were together again, so he could stay hidden from it all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the sharp, sharp, never dulling fucking shock of thinking that the world was still inescapably out there and Eve was gone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Those nights came less and less often, though he knew they would never entirely stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not even Kay beside could banish them all of the way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He would not wish her to, even if he could.  Eve deserved those few, illusory moments of life his hopeful mind gave her, dancing all the while.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eve would always be his wife, but Adam loved Kay.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He loved her, was enchanted by her and delighted and irritated and confounded and he got up on even his bad nights, when the darkness in him was greater than any of the darkness outside could be, because of her.  He longed to walk through the ages to come with her, watching her wonderful mind take in the world in ways that he never could, and sharing his own, somewhat more cynical thoughts with her as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a long time he thought, completely unmoving, staring at Kay but not seeing.  Which was probably terribly unnerving for her, even if she was used to his weird vampire shit.  He made himself focus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She waited, patiently, as he thought, her sweet, but still tomato red face calm again.  Being thoughtful.  Having lots of questions, but waiting until it would be polite to ask.  Being Kay.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Who, he realized, he wanted to marry.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That his heart felt lighter and yet ached at the same time Adam knew was all in his head, the idiot pump having not done a lick of work in centuries, but he still found himself rubbing his chest with the heel of his hand.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he leaned in, “I am going to kiss you.”  He recognized how fucking incongruous that was, in the face of what she had said to him, but he didn’t care.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are we through fighting?”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was not a fight, sweetheart.  That was barely a disagreement.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then I would rather never fight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll try not to be an asshole, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The look she gave him said very clearly that he was always an asshole, but that she loved him and accepted him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he kissed her, feeling safe to assume consent.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a faint copperiness to Adam’s lips, especially the slick, sensitive inner part of them - which made him shiver when she scraped her teeth over it - to his tongue that gently lapped into her mouth, that meant he had fed recently.  That he would be languorous and slow taking her.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sliding his hands down her legs, the callouses snagging and sparking along the wool of her tights, he pulled off the one boot she had gotten, while tenderly, firmly, cradling the back of her head, his fingers barely pulling her hair.  Enough to make her back arch, so her nipples peaked and ached and wanted to be pinched, and her breasts pushed into the flat wall of his chest.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if sensing what she needed, Adam slid that same free hand back up her leg, pushing her skirt as it went, then tracing over her hip, under her shirt, the roughness making her shudder, until he pulled down one of the cups of her bra, taking her nipple between a finger and thumb, rolling hard, but slowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kay moaned, her eyes fluttering open.  Close as they were, with their mouths now barely teasing each other, even she could see Adam’s face.  His eyes were avid, alien, predatory.  This inhumanness vivid in them.  “You like that, don’t you?  My sweetheart, my prim sweetheart loves getting her nipples pinched and her hair pulled and her cunny licked and pounded and wants me to bite her everywhere.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wet heat prickled between her legs, the stress of what Adam said had not been a fight now devolving into neediness.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You-you-you like all of that, too.” Kay stuttered out.  Though she was awkward at dirty talk she always tried, thinking that it was only fair that Adam got the benefit of it as well.  “Except the cun- cun-” what he was doing to her shoulder then, with fangs and tongue made it hard to think, “Except the PUSSY part.  You like that with your dick,” she was babbling quickly.  “Butpoundingnotbeinpounded.Youmightlikethattoowehaven’tdiscus-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam growled, “Later,” pushing her back flat on the couch, her legs spread enough for him to slip between them, the bar of his still denim trapped dick rubbing almost too hard on her clit.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kay planted a foot on the floor and pushed up against him, panting, rubbing back, soaked and empty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want my hand to pleasure yourself on, my sweetheart?” Adam said, his voice and accent deep and old, from a time long past.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reached between them, his strong, long fingers easily opening the seam of her tights, so two of them could slide into her, could fuck her, while that hard, rough heel of his palm took over the rubbing of her clit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her cunt tightened and pulsed and bore down on the delicious feeling of being filled, as she sighed, “Thank you,” proceeding to work herself against his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Against her neck, Adam gave a husky, ratcheting laugh, “I love you so fucking much, Kay.  Sometimes I can barely stand it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he turned his hand, and with a beckoning finger tapped deep in her, so she bucked, and crossed her legs hard over his touch, and squeezed and babbled that she loved him as something unfurled and opened in her and she shuddered with the pleasure of it, Adam pulling her even closer to him, until she fell limp, momentarily exhausted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few moments of quiet stillness, Adam propped himself on an elbow, his cock now digging into her side, smiling down at her fondly.  A smile that would have made her heart race if it had the energy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you marry me?  If I were to ask?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you asking? Hoping a moment of weakness I might not think through my answer?”  Her voice was raspy and it occurred to her that she might have been screaming recently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know better than that,” Adam ruefully shook his head.  “But I might,” he drawled out slowly, smiling a little wide, “be asking if I could ask.  Since the last question I had for you, went so badly.  Not,” he gave her a serious look, “that I don’t plan on readdressing that subject at a later date.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wiping her face one last time with both hands, Kay took her glasses back from him, put them on, and nodded once.  “You can ask me to marry you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” Adam stood up, taking Kay’s hands to pull her up as well, leaning down to kiss her throat, and whisper in her ear.  “I’ll plan on it then.  Now, let’s go to bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For sex,” she stated rather than asked, reaching between them to stroke him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dick throbbed in response, and Adam hissed against her cheek, “If you insist.”</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
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  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The piece that Adam played -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inBKFMB-yPg</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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